Take Two
by Redlance-ck
Summary: And she's always there to save the day. -Or- How I like to dream the Artie "you killed your father/you'll always be alone" scene actually went down. Spoilers for 4x10. [One-shot]


**Disclaimer**: Warehouse 13, the world and the characters that inhabit it do not belong to me in any way, though sometimes I lie away at night wishing that they did and what I'd do with them if they did. And then I write those thoughts down.

**A/N**: How I like to dream Astrolabe-Artie's "you killed your farther/you'll always be alone" actually went down. Spoilers for 4x10.

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"And you." Myka's flinch was mercifully inward as Artie turned on her. "With your uncompromising, prudish rigidity," his words drove daggers through her heart as he spat them, "and your condescension and your infuriating belief that you're always the smartest one in the room." And part of her knew that this wasn't Artie, that he would never say any of these things. That he didn't believe them, just knew his agents well enough to know what would hurt the most. And yet the knowledge did little to alleviate the sting of truth she feared was present in them. "You're on a direct path to spending the rest of your life," the word reverberated inside her mind before he even spoke it, dripping venom and disdain, "alone." And with tears turning green eyes glassy, Myka let shame tug her eyes away from those that had smiled at her so many times before.

"I'd like to argue that theory." Their attention is dragged kicking and screaming from the dank and depressive abyss of self-pity they had been so expertly tossed into and in the direction of the voice, and Myka's gaze might have been heavy with tears but she'd bet money on the notion that her eyes met endless brown, burning like coal in the heat of the moment and belying her outward exterior, before Pete's had even moved to find them. A lightening-fast reaction, even considering that time seemed to slow.

H.G. Wells stood before them, the regal air that forever hung about her not in the least bit stifled by the situation, though her sudden appearance did steal Myka's breath.

A moment in which a thousand thoughts were birthed and laid to rest passed in the instant their eyes met, an instant that could have so easily become an eternity had the straits been less dire, and it was only when Myka saw H.G.'s arm flex that she registered the fact that the woman before them was clutching something in her outstretched hand. Myka's eyes became trained on a slender index finger, curled around a trigger, and she felt her heart thunder wildly in her chest as she watched it begin to squeeze.

Time sped up, returning to normal, and arching bolts of electricity exploded from the barrel of the Tesla. Sinewy fingers of blues and purples, rushing at the man who had once been Arthur Nielson and wrapping him up in their painful embrace. Myka remembered the feeling, of every nerve ending in your body being charged to the point of agony. How even after you awoke from the fainting spell it did no use to fight, your body ached from the thousands of tiny blows the electricity had delivered. And the woman before her, watching as the man dropped unconscious between them, knew what that felt like too. Perhaps that was why her brow creased as he fell. Perhaps it was the idea that she'd turned gun on friend, again.

Before she could give the idea too much though, Myka's reverie was broken by Pete rushing forward. She reached out to him, but he breezed by her hand.

"You shot him!" His tone was accusatory, but the malice behind it was far less than either of them had previously witnessed be directed at the Victorian woman. He knelt beside Artie, gaze sweeping automatically for signs of life and finding them. "He's out cold. And will be for a while." He flashed the Englishwoman a look. "What setting did you scramble him with?"

"Well, neither of you were going to do it." H.G. pointed out dryly, ignoring his question, and lowered her arm as her expression turned momentarily thoughtful. "And I do have rather a lot of pent up aggression toward the man, regardless of his most recent change of heart." She glanced down at Artie's motionless form, watching as Pete experimentally prodded at the man's shoulder. H.G. gestured towards him with her Tesla as she lifted her head, grin turning into airy laughter as she spoke. "Was quite fun, actually." Myka offered a weak smile and at the utter lack of heart behind it, Helena's joviality faded away to nothing.

"How did you find us?" She asked, voice quiet, cracked under the strain of holding back tears. H.G. digs into the pocket of her jacket with her free hand, pulling out a streamlined version of a familiar device. She flourished her fingers, gently waving the blinking rectangular object, and scrunched up her nose in a sheepish smile that didn't hold an ounce of true shame.

"I made some... modifications, to Arthur's spectacles when I was last at the Warehouse." She slipped the tracking receiver back into her pocket, a small frown marring her features as she continued. "I'd had some concerns over his most recent erratic behaviour and Mrs Frederic and I stopped by to pay him a visit." Myka's posture seemed to straighten as comprehension took hold.

"You were **at** the Warehouse? Recently?" The hurt was evident. In her voice, on her face, in her eyes. Helena sighed, but didn't allow her gaze to stray from Myka's.

"Yes." That same small frown line appeared once more between Myka's eyebrows and she flicked her attention away from the inventor's face, letting it land on anything and almost everything else as uncertainty began shadowing her own. "But you must believe me when I say that I was under the strictest orders not to contact you." She slid her attention sideways and found Pete, getting to his feet after having secured a pair of cuffs around Artie's wrists. His dark eyes met hers and his body stilled, completely. "Any of you." He glanced toward Myka, then back to H.G., and gave a curt nod that seemed to signal something to the woman, because she broke her contact with him and turned her body fully towards the taller agent. Pete stepped away from them, moving to address the small crowd of onlookers who were gabbing amongst themselves. "Orders that were enforced tenfold once I'd left. Otherwise-"

"It's okay." Myka breathed her interruption, almost as though she were fearful that words spoken any louder might rouse the man at their feet. She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. "I get it. You were needed elsewhere." There was silence between them then, the sounds of Pete attempting to clear the room and those of the people either complying with his request or arguing it falling to fill the space.

And there it was again, the inevitable awkwardness that had plagued them since Helena's betrayal. That stood so tall and foreboding between them, it was almost impossible to see what things had once been like. The friendliness, the banter, the easy camaraderie that had come so effortlessly; gone. Crushed beneath the boot of hurt, then doubt, and now some tenuous uncertainty that was sure to break. Only neither knew which side it would fracture on.

Helena's face transformed, becoming free of worry and smile lines alike, appearing almost blank in her sincerity.

"I'd have rather been with you." And even as the words knocked all of her senses sideways, Myka's mind conjured up the image of the inventor standing before her in the aisle of the Warehouse where Joshua's Trumpet was now stored wearing the exact same expression and speaking in an all too similar tone.

And Helena's face was rarely void of expression. One simply need know how to read the clues painted upon it. Something which Myka considered herself to be quite skilled at by now, and so she knew exactly how her smile would be received.

"I kinda think part of you might have been." But where Myka could see her teasing smile warm H.G. from the inside out, she could also see the confusion clouding her face. She quirked her eyebrows, feigning surprise. "You mean you **don't** have some tracking doohickey thing planted on me somewhere?" And after a moment, and a long, exaggerated blink, Helena finally released a breathy laugh. She held up her hands, the palm of her left stretched flat, that of her right curled around the butt of her Tesla, proclaiming her innocence.

"You have my word that your footprints have gone entirely unmonitored." She paused, returning her hands to her sides. "At least by me." Myka wrinkled her nose and tilted her head to the side.

"I've gotta say, I'm kind of disappointed." Helena brushed back the side of her jack and tucked her gun into the waistband of her pants, raising an eyebrow at Myka.

"Do I detect a hint of longing for my previous, somewhat ignoble, pastimes?" Myka's smile flourished at the question, tripping headlong into a grin that was wide enough to show her teeth. She ducked her head, ringlets falling to frame her face as she glanced up at the other woman.

"Well, no one is ever truly alone when they have their own personal stalker." Helena's grin was coy as Myka lifted her head again, catching dark eyes as they watched her from beneath long lashes.

"Complaining?" Myka opened her mouth and then promptly closed it at the sight of mischief twinkling in brown orbs, before giving a clipped shake of her head.

"Nope." She almost laughed at the way Helena expertly directed her features, archly raising both eyebrows and then lowering them in a way that spoke volumes without a single word. It was the first time she'd felt anywhere close to that kind of reaction all day, and not without reason. Simply seeing the woman had given her more happiness than... Well. Regardless of the comparison, there was a reason the emotion had eluded her that day. Helena seemed to sense the sudden shift within Myka, maybe saw it on her face, and she took two steps forward to walk her right to the edge of Myka's space. Mere hair's breadths from invading it, as she'd done with ease in a time long passed. But where once she'd been cocksure and full to bursting with flirtatious certainty, now there was only an intense sincerity and determination, edged with with a tentativeness that almost made Myka break once more.

"Even when I am far from your side..." Her words came slow and decisive, purposeful in their gait and selection, and Myka's heart skipped inside her chest. Skittering over her ribcage and yanking her stomach into a roll. Because Helena had never been one for willingly letting her vulnerable side show, but here it was in all its glory. "Know that I leave part of myself with you." And Myka's breath was stolen by it, and H.G.'s wavering but ultimately reassuring smile. "You are never alone, Myka." And she'd known that, even as Artie had spewed his insidious hurt. But fear is a formidable demon and one proved time and time difficult to banish. "And you shall remain as such as long as I've still air in my lungs." And by themselves the words were wholly unremarkable, but paired with Helena's unfaltering attention and their mottled history, the sentiment was almost too much for Myka's current state of mind.

Almost.

She reached out with one hand, following the trajectory of the appendage rather that studying H.G.'s face for a reaction and so she missed the veritable torrent of emotions that cascaded over her features as her fingers curled around the inventor's arm and gave a gentle squeeze.

There was so much there, buried in a shallow grave beneath the surface, just waiting to be excavated by careful hands.

Myka's eyes found the inventor's, the woman who had travelled through time to find a better future, and they smiled at one another.

And time found itself bested once more as it slowed around them, and for one endless moment the fate of the world and its precarious status were forgotten.

"Uh, guys?" Pete's voice drifted toward them, gently urging them back from their break in reality, and they turned to him in unison to find the room empty save for the four of them. He absently waved his hands towards them as he spoke. "If you're finished doing," he let his head roll in a haphazard, bonless circle, "whatever it is that you keep on doing without actually **doing** anything." Suddenly flushed, Myka let her hand fall away and dropped her gaze with a smile that was suitable tapered at the corners due to his chastising. H.G.'s gazed flickered to her with an expression to match, minus any shame, and then back to Pete. "We have an unconscious Artie and a magic dagger to contend with."


End file.
